Amgen strikes immunotherapy deal

Amgen will pay Advaxis $40 million up front and buy $25 million in Advaxis stock for rights to the personalized cancer immunotherapy ADXS-NEO. The treatment is created by sequencing a patient’s healthy and cancer cells to identify neoepitopes, or markers on antigens, that are most likely to prompt an immune response. Advaxis then uses an engineered strain of bacteria to deliver neoepitope peptides directly into cells that tell the immune system to recognize and combat tumor cells. The companies expect to start the first clinical trials of ADXS-NEO next year.